WARNERS Bay kickboxer Serin Murray will reassess her goals after a narrow but unanimous points loss to England’s Ruth Ashdown in their world title fight at Newcastle Panthers on Saturday night.
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For more pictures of the bout and undercard, click on the image above.
Murray was chasing an unprecedented fifth world title in a third weight division.
But Ashdown, the World Muaythai Council European champion and International Sport Kickboxing Association British champion, will head home with the ISKA super-flyweight belt.
Ashdown finished with two black eyes while Murray was hardly marked, but the three judges awarded the fight to the Englishwoman 49-48.5, 49-48.5, 49.5-48.5.
‘‘I’m just bummed out. My opponent was way too good, basically,’’ Murray said yesterday. ‘‘There was a big build-up for nothing, it feels like at the moment ...
‘‘I’m not quite sure where I am at yet. Maybe I was looking past this a bit and have had a bit of a wake-up call, I don’t know.’’
Murray had already won world titles in flyweight (51.8kilograms) and bantamweight (54.5kg), successfully defending both, and was trying to add the super-flyweight (53.2kg) title under modified Thai rules (no elbows).
Her trainer, Rob Murdoch, believed Murray’s preparation could have been better but offered no excuses and said Ashdown was a worthy world champion.
‘‘We don’t want to take anything away from the other girl. She was the best fighter Serin has ever fought and she was the better fighter on the night,’’ Murdoch said.
‘‘She won the fight legitimately and definitely deserves to be world champion.
‘‘That third division, we really wanted Serin to be the first person to ever do it. Noone’s done it yet ... you just need all those little circumstances to come together three times.’’
Murdoch said there was only a slight possibility of a rematch because he would have to bring Ashdown back to Newcastle ‘‘and she was pretty marked up, so she might be a bit hesitant’’.
‘‘It was a world title fight and the other girl was no pretender, but it was as close a margin as you can get,’’ Murdoch said.
‘‘The other girl has got two black eyes and is banged up pretty bad, and Serin hasn’t got a mark on her, but it’s just one of those things and sometimes they don’t go your way.
‘‘It was a really, really tough fight, and it was a world-class fight, but a loss is a loss.
‘‘Serin’s gone to Sydney to rest for a couple of days and have a think about what’s happened ... and I’ll start putting things together next week and planning for her next fight.’’
Newcastle’s Kayne Young stopped New Zealand’s James Kaiwhare with a technical knockout in the fourth round of their lightweight bout on the undercard.
Welterweight Matt Cashmore, from Wyong, won a unanimous decision against another Kiwi, Ricky Campbell. Sydney’s Daniel Roberts was a unanimous points winner over Brisbane’s Jacob Francis in their super-heavyweight fight.
